Friday, May 20, 2011

End-to-end guidelines

There has been lots of discussion about how you should establish a claim for a fastest time on an end-to-end run. A site dedicated to just that called 'Fastest Known Times' uses the following guidelines:

How do you establish a speed record?Buzz Burrell has proposed 3 common sense guidelines:

Announce your intentions in advance. Like a true gentleman, pay your respects to those who came before you, and tell them what you intend to attempt and when.

Be an open book. Invite anyone to come and watch or, better yet, participate. This makes your effort more fun and any result more believable.

These three rules do not "prove" you have done anything. They just make it easier for a good person to believe you.

Supported, self-supported, unsupported? What does it mean?

Supported means you have a dedicated support team that meets you along the way to supply whatever you need. This generally allows for the fastest, lightest trips, and for an element of camaraderie and safety, since someone knows about where you are at all times.

Self-supported means that you don't carry everything you need from the start, but you don't have dedicated, pre-arranged people helping you. This is commonly done a couple different ways: You might put out stashes of supplies for yourself prior to the trip, or you might just use what's out there, such as stores, begging from other trail users, etc.

Unsupported means you have no external support of any kind. Typically, this means that you must carry all your supplies right from the start, except any water that can be obtained along the way from natural sources. This approach has also been termed "alpine style". The longest trip I'm aware of using this style is Coup's 20-day thru-hike of the Colorado Trail. For most people, carrying enough food for more than a few days to one week will be prohibitive. Unsupported also means unaccompanied!

Thoughts on Verification:You put in a huge effort and trashed your body for the next 6 months. You want people to believe what you say you did, right?

Follow Buzz's guidelines above.

If other people are involved in your trip, make sure they are involved in the telling the story as well.

Photos & video really help.

Independent verifiers are key. Consider passing out cards to people you meet along the way with information about your trip & asking the person to email you to confirm when and where they saw you.

For shorter trips where it is practical, GPS tracks (.gpx files) are great.

SPOT Tracker just might be the ultimate verification tool, and it provides a measure of safety as well. Also, it's a lot of fun for your friends to be able to watch your progress online in real time. They cost about $100 plus $100/year for the service. The current version of the Tracker weighs about 7oz, but apparently a new, improved Tracker weighing around 5oz will be available in November 2009.

Injinji Socks

Undoubtedly the best running sock available, Injinji have supported our attempts at running the AAWT with gear and most importantly their magical toesocks.

Helping the animal shelter

As added incentive I have decided to raise money for the local animal shelter (Geelong Animal Welfare Society GAWS). There are many good causes but this is one close to my heart and one that often struggles to meet the demands especially over the coming holiday season. So if you are looking to support my efforts with a donation to GAWS please follow the link to Everyday Hero to contribute.

Link will be added here:

Athlete Profiles

The runners - Andy and Phil

Andy Hewat

Midpack, middle aged ultrarunner with a passion for mountain trails. The tougher and gnarlier the better. Strength: downhills. Weakness: uphills. Motto: have poles will travel. Have dreamt of running the AAWT since a Canadian friend told me about a continuous trail from Victoria to Canberra way back in 1988. Have finished 15 x 100 mile races including Hardrock, Western States, Great North Walk, Glasshouse and Coast to Kosciuszko. After two failed attempts at the track a lot more circumspect but no less keen to complete a full traverse. Moving a little slower these days after developing AF, now mostly under control after an ablation (see personal Blog for more detail).

Philip Murphy

42 year old design engineer who likes to run lots. Got in with the wrong crowd 11 years ago. Have since ran 9 marathons and 80 ultras including 14 trail 100 milers (Glasshouse, Great North Walk,Western States,Alpine, UTMB and Hardrock) and 4x150 milers (Coast to Kosciuszko) Despite a failed attempt last year am still dead keen to get back out there again. Looks like it might have to wait til Summer 2011-12 by which time hopefully Andy will have a much better knowledge of the trail.
The lure of this great trail is still very much alive...bring it!